The origins of poetry are rooted in the Greek term, poiesis: “to make,” suggesting that language is material and poetry is craft. In this limited edition artist book, Meandering in Three Acts, Shaya Ishaq explores these haptic origins of poetry through her textile-based practice. The project emerged from a winter of being immersed in a collection of books by Toronto-based Black poets. Relating the lines of poetry on a page to the warp and weft of the loom, Ishaq uses a body mapping exercise to create an affective map and self-portrait. Body-mapping is an arts educational tool for interpreting art through the physical sensation the work compels. In Meandering in Three Acts, the method is used to construct an intimate cartography in fiber made of cotton yarn that traces where the poetry of Dionne Brand, Aisha Sasha John, and Victoria Mbabazi has touched Shaya’s body. The colours blue, red, and yellow are inspired by Brand's A Blue Clerk, John’s I have to live., and Mbabazi’s chapbook. On the verso, Shaya’s written response to each of these books of poetry moves between free verse, confession, and intimate conversations.

The work presented as a whole is a portrait of the artist informed by the language of Black Toronto poets. Measuring the artists’ height, Meandering in Three Acts is a wall scroll as much as it is a book of dialogues. 

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Meandering in Three Acts can be purchased for $20 at Gallery TPW. 

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Designed by Emmie Tsumura.

Documentation by Michael Fawcett.
 

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